About the Program

Issues concerning the ethical, legal and social implications of advances in biotechnology and biomedicine are increasingly arising both in the United States and abroad. From stem cell research to health care reform, these topics involve critical dilemmas at the intersections of law, society, culture, public policy, philosophy, religion, economics, and history.

Scientists, healthcare providers and policy-makers confront the challenge of how to approach these complex questions, yet scientific and technological advances have far out-paced our ability to understand or make key decisions about these issues. Columbia has developed the new Bioethics program to address the critical need to educate professionals and equip them with the knowledge and skills to understand and make bioethical decisions.

Program Objectives

The M.S. in Bioethics provides students with the training to work professionally on issues in bioethics, and grounds them in historical, philosophical, legal, and social-scientific approaches and models for addressing bioethics. The program prepares students to work in various capacities within this new and ever-growing field, and includes a concentration in global bioethics – the first of its kind in the United States.

The program enables students to draw on the extraordinary resources of the University, including the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the schools of Law, Journalism, Nursing and International and Public Affairs, and the Arts and Sciences.

Students are assigned to a primary faculty advisor, with whom they work closely to design an individualized program that best meets their needs.  Students may then focus, if they choose, on one of a variety of areas, including clinical ethics, research ethics, neuroethics, reproductive ethics, environmental ethics, or other realms.

The M.S. in Bioethics program may be taken on a part-time or full-time basis.